“I can’t live here anymore,” I said. “I just can’t.”
My husband, Lewis, had just pulled into the driveway of our new home. I stared at it through the car windshield while the kids napped in their seats in the back. It hadn’t even been a month since we’d bought the house, but I knew we couldn’t stay.
Ever since the day we moved in I felt as if there was just something…off about the place. Like there was a presence in the house, as though someone was watching me.
I couldn’t explain it. And I definitely didn’t expect Lewis to understand if I tried. How could he? That’s why I struggled to keep it all to myself until now.
Lew sat in silence for a long moment. Then, to my total surprise, he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s fix up the house like we planned, then we’ll sell it in the spring.”
I felt so relieved, but silly too. Lew didn’t even ask me what had changed. When we bought the house, I was in love with it. It was 175 years old and considered a historical site.
Mazelike on the inside, as only old houses can be, the white clapboard had plenty of space for our growing family and a beautiful yard for our two little boys to play in when they got older. The place was full of homey details like the intricate wooden trim framing the roof, a cozy fireplace in the back room, and a screened-in porch that wrapped around half the house. We’d even discovered a secret stairway!
Of course, fixing up such an old house would take a lot of work, but we didn’t mind. At least not then.
Now, though, things were different. Lew often worked late at his job as an accountant, leaving me alone with two-year-old Jonathon and six-month-old Collin. Trouble was, I didn’t feel alone. I was overwhelmed by the sense that someone had an eye on me all during the day, but especially at night. It was so strange. I just couldn’t take it any longer.
How lucky was I to have a husband who took my feelings seriously? “Thanks, Lew,” I said and leaned over in my seat to give him a kiss. We unloaded the kids from the car and headed inside. It would still take all winter to get the work done on the house, but I felt better knowing we were leaving soon. It’s just for a few months, I told myself. Lord, I know we won’t be staying forever.
I took Collin upstairs to the nursery to change him. When I set him down, I suddenly felt a rush of air around me, as though a great gust had blown in from a window. But it hadn’t come from outside—the breeze came from the door behind me. I turned around and a woman ran in. Her tawny brown hair was long and straight and her gentle face looked pleading.
“Please don’t leave,” she said. “I love having you and the babies here.” Then she turned and left as quietly as she’d come.
I couldn’t help it—I started to laugh. Am I going crazy? I thought. Surely I was. I’d let my imagination get the better of me. So why wasn’t I terrified? Because I wasn’t, and that didn’t make any sense. Something about the vision had set me at ease.
Collin giggled on the changing table. “I wish you could talk,” I told him. “For now, this is just between us.”
A week later, a few friends came by to help Lew and me with the house. Previous occupants had walled off the secret stairway we found, leaving it inaccessible from the ground floor. We planned to open it up again.
While our friends finished taking out the wall, I went upstairs to the nursery with Collin. As soon as I laid him in his crib, that familiar rush of air hit me, blowing my hair back. The same woman appeared in the doorway. She looked just as she did before, in a simple gray dress.
“I just love what you’ve done with the house!” she said. And with that, she was gone.
This time, I was no more surprised by her visit than if she had been a dear friend. She felt like just another part of the house, like the cozy fireplace or the secret stair. Nothing seemed “off” anymore. Still, I kept her sudden appearances to myself. No reason to share her. Lew knew all he needed to know, I figured.
By the next week, the stairwell had been reopened and the old wall cleared away. The next big project was the floors. A team of professionals trooped into the house. “Let me know if you need anything,” I called to them from the kitchen the morning they arrived. Jonathon was down for a nap and little Collin bounced around in his walker by my feet while I did the dishes.
“The baby!” It was the woman’s voice. I recognized it right away. But this time her tone was different. Urgent, and commanding. “The baby, he’s going to fall!”
I spun around. Collin had bounced his way over to the basement door. One of the workers had left it ajar, and Collin teetered on the edge, about to tumble headfirst down the steps. I scooped him up out of the walker, just in time.
In my heart, I knew it was more than simple mother’s intuition that had alerted me to danger. “The most amazing thing happened today,” I told Lew at dinner.
After that incident, I didn’t see or hear from the woman again. But I knew she was among us, keeping watch over my family. We never moved out. How could we? After all, our old house had everything we could ever want: the beautiful wood trim, wrap-around porch, the cozy fireplace, and its very own angel. We just might stay forever.
